"Je deteste des Americains, " said the old German woman sitting across from me on the airplane. Her face contorted into a grimace of disgust as she and her friend continued to complain that Americans had no culture, that they never learned another language, and that their inferior customs were spreading throughout Europe like an infectious disease. Each hair on the back of my neck sprang to attention, as I strained to hear the women's inflammatory remarks. I gripped my Nike bag harder with each insulting phrase.
I had been traveling to Wels, Austria for twenty six hours, during which time I had been told by my friend who I was going to pick me up that his grandfather was going to be picking me up instead, and spoke no English. It then hit me to why I had been listing to German language CD’s every morning on the to work. I had already become conversational in German but had not become accustomed to the new culture. In which was a culture which I had believed to be rich in tolerance and acceptance. Naturally, the women's remarks hurt, but was I really an "ugly American?" Did I have no appreciation of anything other than Nike or Coca-Cola? Had I not been touched by the new world I had been exposed to?
Without question, my three weeks in Austria changed my life in countless ways. From the minute I stepped off the plane in Munich’s Airport, the vastly different sights along the clean street, the ubiquitous smells of rich delicious German cuisine, and my feelings of excitement about my new surroundings told me that I definitely was "not in Kansas anymore." My best friend Phillip helped greatly in modifying my attitudes, as for the first time I was with peers from a country which I had only read about. Although it was sometimes difficult trying to find links between my self and my Austrians or German friends, I soon came to enjoy my new environment. By the time I left, I was wondering how I ever could survive the boredom of the United States. This is not to say that, prior to this; I had not been closed up in a bland box of a world. I had traveled throughout the Caribbean and The United Sates, my mother and father travel annually: a practice my family and I continue to this day. Thus my exposure to these various different nationalities in Austria built on my foundations of cultural awareness, and was rather laying a cornerstone for it.
My understanding of my new environment was aided tremendously by my ability to speak a little German, and was subsequently one of the best gifts I brought back from my three weeks stay in Austria. An entire year of school lessons could not have taught me as much of the language as I learned form speaking with my Austrian friends, shopping in the local stores, or ordering in cafes and restaurants. My proficiency in German surprised not only the family that I was staying with, but also my parents back at home.
America will never again seem the same to me. Austria gave me enough distances to look at my country through objective eyes. Traveling throughout Europe was like a trip with Gulliver. It gave me the ability to look inside myself and discern my country's faults as well as its numerous strengths. Like the German women's remarks, it hurt me to find that the United States is not the only country in the world with a rich and stimulating environment, but also an environment that is greatly homogenized. With my new perspective, I saw that America was not what it had been. Then I thought for a moment and realized that America had not changed, but I had.